The Man with Stars in His Eyes
by Helen8462
Summary: What a fool she'd been, looking for home in all the wrong places, in all the wrong decades, with all the wrong people. [Part 3 of the Janeway/Lorca and J/C series]


_**A/N:** This story is for MiaCooper, and as she says, all of this could become even more unbelievable after Discovery airs later episodes, but temporal mechanics be damned, I wanted to write it. All my thanks to Mia, as always, for being my beta (though I changed stuff after she reviewed this, so mistakes are mine), and for being the rare-pair enabler that she is. Thanks also to you readers who are coming along with us down this crazy rabbit hole._

 _This story is #4 in this completely unexpected series. Please read the others first:_  
 _1\. Of Kings and Fortune (miacooper)_  
 _2\. For Captains and Duty (me)_  
 _3\. Forever in One Second (miacooper)_

* * *

The museum is beginning to empty out; a chime in three tones makes it clear that visitors should head for the exit. And yet, she stays rooted to the spot.

Her gaze is fixed on the face of a man who died a century ago. On his chiseled jaw, his nose, but mostly, his eyes. It was always his eyes that had her.

Even years later, he is a hard man to shake from her memory. His hold on her remains difficult to define. A morbid fascination? A history lesson? The ultimate unachievable romance? She's never quite put a finger on what has kept them tethered across decades. She knows only that the line has been tugged again in the most unexpected of places.

She bites her lip, reaches out and places her finger tips to the portrait, on the side of his cheek, drawing them down to touch his lips. They are flat and cold. Not warm and supple the way she remembers them against her own.

Next to his portrait is a short biography. It summarizes him as a decorated officer. Distills his years of service into a brief paragraph of military tactics, of battles won and lost. It stops short of calling him a hero. Or a king.

With a sigh she concedes that the plaque doesn't do him justice. Not in the least.

Starfleet has classified the man he really was. That man will never be on display in a museum.

But she knows.

* * *

Her wineglass was lost to the floor, contents staining the carpet, but she couldn't think for his lips on hers. The kiss that she'd experienced only in dreams - the one that was so close too many times before – now made achingly, wonderfully real.

It would have been so easy for her to linger there, wrapped in his breath, fingers twined in his hair, lost in the fervor of the moment.

So easy.

But altogether too difficult.

 _It's not fair_ , she thought for a fleeting second on the journey back to her senses. They shouldn't come together like this. She shouldn't be satisfied twice in the same day by two very different men. And most of all, Chakotay shouldn't be second to a ghost.

She felt greedy and wholly undeserving.

It wasn't right.

And so, she pulled away.

The confusion that spread across his face wore the slings and arrows of all of her regrets. But she made the right choice. The stars, a backdrop for this meeting of mouths and bodies that would never have come about but for his audacity, still reminded her too much of that other man.

"We can't," she said.

He swallowed against the silence. "I understand."

As he backed away she knew that he didn't. Not really.

"Chakotay…"

"I shouldn't have come, I'm sorry."

"Yes. Yes, you should have. I wanted you to."

"I don't understand then, why –"

"Did I pull away?"

"Yes."

She prepared herself for the confession. "I was a hundred years away today. I saw things that haven't been seen for a century. I touched history. I breathed it. And it – and he – breathed into me a renewed sense of purpose."

"So I can see," he said, and she could sense he was trying hard not to judge her harshly. But then the words spilled and couldn't be taken back. "How many times, Kathryn? How many times have we been right here, so close, with a reason to come together? With the very universe itself giving us a push, only to have one of us pull away?"

He was right, of course. And she knew in that moment that he would never be the one to pull away again. But the time wasn't right. They couldn't forge a relationship like this. Not while the stars outside her window still reminded her of that other man.

"Too many."

* * *

The third time that chimes echo through the marble halls, she hears footsteps coming in her direction. She'd know them anywhere and usually they make her smile. This time, her husband's presence draws forth regret. Still, true to form, his wordless company behind her shoulder emboldens her.

"I went back," she confesses. Her words reverberate in the marble hall.

"I know. Twice."

His admission causes her to turn abruptly. "You were off the ship both times, how did you –"

"I always could tell when you were hiding something from me," he says, placing a hand on her shoulder.

"I didn't think you'd understand."

"You're right, I didn't," he agrees. "But that isn't so important anymore. Did you find what you were looking for?"

She sighs and is lost in the portrait once again. "In a way."

* * *

"You're back," he said, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth, barely perceptible in the dim light of his office.

She steadied herself, blinking to adjust to the change in her environment, wholly unsure if her inability to see was because of how she arrived or his preference for the dark.

"I am."

"And?" he questioned, rising from his chair. "It seems the transport was a little easier on you this time. Been practicing with it, have you?"

"We've made a few adjustments."

"I see," he tapped a keypad and the lights rose slowly, allowing her to view him fully. "You haven't changed," he observed, rising slowly, hands splayed on the desk.

"For me, it's only been a few days."

"Ah. But you chose to visit me a good deal later than a few days. Are you waiting me out? Or are you only interested in how our research has advanced?"

"I'm not here for the technology, Gabriel," she admitted, sliding to a seat in the chair opposite of him. "I'm here for the man behind it."

He considered her carefully, walked smoothly, tracing his fingertips across the glass surface and came to rest with his hip on the side of the desk, dangerously close to her. "Is that so? Now, what could have made me so interesting to you the last time that you just had to risk your own future for another rendezvous?"

She swallowed hard. "I would have thought that's obvious."

"Is it really so lonely out there in twenty-three seventy….what year was it again?"

"Six. Twenty-three seventy six. And yes, it is."

"You've got the technology to jump to any time you want and you came back here. Why? Or do you have a sailor in every decade?"

"You intrigue me." She crossed her legs and noticed how his eyes – still full of stars – traced down to her thighs. "You're a confident man, sure and long-sighted. I need that kind of vision if I'm going to get my crew home."

"You flatter me, but first, I must ask… The technology, it didn't work for you, did it?"

His accusation did little to rouse her. "That dream died on your ship when I visited you last."

He shook his head and made a disapproving sound. "You think that I don't know how you stole from me? Because I know. I knew then."

"And you didn't stop me?"

"Why would I stop you? All's fair, and despite the years, we are comrades in arms." Then he leaned in closer and whispered, "Besides, I stole from you too."

* * *

"I always knew how you got the things you needed, Kathryn," he says, sliding his hand down her shoulder, letting it come to rest on her waist. Her gaze is still set one meter and a hundred years away.

"You used whatever means was necessary to get us home. I respected you for that. You didn't need my permission or my approval then."

"I felt like I did."

"Well, you didn't. And you don't need it now."

* * *

The parcel was hand delivered to her door by a man who was all of twenty-five years old.

She was in the kitchen chopping vegetables, and heard snippets of the exchange.

"… I was told this is the residence of Kathryn Janeway."

"That's correct," her husband replied, "She's just inside. I'll get her."

The man padded softly just through the doorway as she wiped her hands on her apron and made her way toward the unfamiliar voice. But rounding the corner, she noticed the resemblance almost immediately. Her stomach lurched.

"Admiral Janeway?" the man asked, hand running through dark hair.

"Yes," she said with unease. "How may I help you?"

"My name is –"

"Lorca," she hushed.

The man smiled. "Actually, it's Vasquez. But you're correct. My great-great uncle was Captain Gabriel Lorca."

Chakotay bit his lip and slid wordlessly behind his wife. "What brings you here today, Mr. Vasquez?"

"I have something for the Admiral. It was handed down, entrusted to my father and his mother before him. To be delivered on the anniversary of _Voyager's_ return home. Which, of course, didn't mean much to anyone until about a decade ago."

Chakotay was the next to speak. "Your family has had that letter –"

"For over a hundred years, yes sir. And I assure you, it's never been read."

She reached out her hand and took the faded paper from him. "Thank you, Mr. Vasquez. And please, thank your family as well."

"I will ma'am," he tipped his head. "Sir." And then he made his exit.

Chakotay studied his wife. She remained unmoving, staring at the letter, her hands shaking slightly. Sensing her need to be alone, he excused himself to the garden.

She sat herself on the bench of their entryway, peeled back the folds of history and read words written only for her, by the man with stars in his eyes.

* * *

There's somewhere, some-when, I need to visit," she tells him as they prepare to leave the museum. He takes her by the arm and they meander past more portraits and busts, ship's plaques and shrapnel.

"You need closure, that's understandable."

"Is it?" she asks, wholly unsure. "I'm still not sure why he has such a hold on me, Chakotay. Just when I think I'm free from him…" she pauses her steps at the bottom of the outside staircase, shaking her head lightly. "It was the letter. It caught me off-guard."

"Apparently you had a hold on him too."

"I can't rid myself of this feeling that he should be here, walking around, part of the present and not stuck in the past." She looks down to her hands, wringing with uncertainty. "I also feel guilty for having lied to you."

"In a way, Lorca is who brought us together. I can't hold him completely in contempt." She sighs and runs a hand down the side of his arm. He places a gentle kiss to the top of her forehead. "If this is important to you, then it's important to me."

"You'll come with me?" she asks, hoping that he understands how difficult, yet necessary, this is for her – for them.

His answer, of course, is, "yes."

When they materialize, they are greeted by the same bright, blue skies of San Francisco as they had enjoyed earlier in the day. But the air of this season is colder, the landscape is oddly different.

They approach Federation Square on foot – it's smaller, not as grand in this century with many monuments and memorials yet to be constructed. A stark reminder of how many more will lose their lives.

They tuck in quietly to join the last row of attendees. They listen to the speeches, wait for his name to be read among the honored dead. And when it is, she releases a long-held breath. His name sounds like closure.

She gives a nod. He kisses her cheek. And they depart.

* * *

The next time a door slid open silently on _Voyager_ , it was nearly two months after Chakotay had so boldly attempted a new beginning.

The last of her precious, stolen cargo had failed to thrive.

The equations had slowly, systematically, fallen apart.

She had vowed not to return to that dangerously tempting place.

His quarters were dark and silent, and she slipped out of her clothes, then into his bed.

This time, he allowed her no chance to pull away. His broad hands owned her, tugged her and held her tightly so that she had no choice but to yield in the way she'd always imagined she would. His mouth sought to own every intimate and unknowable part of her so readily and so skillfully that she wondered if they hadn't belonged like this – to each other – for a lifetime already.

Wordlessly they came together, and effortlessly she stayed.

What a fool she'd been, looking for home in all the wrong places, in all the wrong decades, with all the wrong people.

She made a point to fix her gaze on the stars while he moved in and around her, shattering every wall that had ever been constructed between them. She memorized the twinkle of a thousand distant suns, the way they shimmered against the blackness of eternity. She equated each one with a surge, a caress, a moan, a sigh. She felt in her chest the ebb and flow of every unreachable point of light as he dragged himself further into her soul. So that from that point on, the stars would remind her only of him.

Of home.


End file.
